Monthly Archives: January 2016

Elias has been on a kick lately where he asks me the definition of a word. And then he asks me again, and again, and again, and again, over a period of several days or a few weeks. The reason for this repetition is unclear to me, but if an expert in childhood learning wants to enlighten me, I’d be grateful. Because it is making me BANANAS.

One of the words he’s latched onto lately is awkward. And I have found it to be a little hard to explain, so I keep fumbling around looking for a definition that will make sense to a five-year old.

A couple of days ago, he appeared in the bathroom while I was changing clothes and asked, again, what “awkward” means. I snapped back, “Well, it’s a little awkward that you keep coming back here while I’m half-naked, when I’ve told you over and over that I want privacy.”

That was super-productive, and we can tell this because his new trick is popping his head around the doorframe, making sure I’m not dressed, and singing, “Aaaaaaawkward!!!!”

Paul took the boys swimming this afternoon, somewhere other than the animal trough in the garage. They hung out for quite a while, and at one point Paul was treading water part way down one of the lanes.

A little boy – maybe five – came tooling by, wearing a massive floatie device, but making good time. “Hi! I’m Donny*!” he chirped.

“Hi Donny! I’m Paul.”

“I’m swimming!” Donny beamed.

“I see that,” Paul said. “Good job, dude!”

“And I’m peeing right now, too!”

—–

This is just a little shout out to Donny’s mom, whoever you are: solidarity, sister. If Donny tells you about this tomorrow and you think about first dying of embarrassment and second duct taping his mouth shut and third moving to Montana … well, relax. He couldn’t have picked a better confessor. Paul nearly drowned laughing, and I’m just really happy it wasn’t my kid saying something outrageous.